St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 3

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH ST. LOUISTHURSDAY THURSDAY. DECEMBER 6, 1990 Mis SUlgS Girl's Disappearance Baffles Normandy Police; fSI TERRY I HUGHES niiiiiiniiiSi I Stroll Naked By Ann Scales Cobbs Of the Post-Dispatch Stall Normandy police are baffled by the disappearance of a 16-year-old girl who has not been seen since Nov. 23 when she dropped off her 2-year-old daughter at a baby sitter's.

The girl, Contina "Tina" Gray, of the 5300 block of Colton Drive, is a sophomore at Lutheran North High School. Police say foul play may be involved because Gray's home was burglarized two months ago and among the items taken was a photograph of her and her mother. A week later, that photograph with a threatening note attached to it was left at a bus stop in the 7200 block of Natural Bridge Road, where Gray normally catches the bus home from school, said Normandy police detective Rich O'Brien. Before the burglary, Gray had received two suspicious phone calls at the same pay phone next to the bus stop, O'Brien said. The caller was a man, he said.

In both cases, someone else standing at the bus stop with Gray picked up the phone and the caller would ask for Tina Gray. "She hung up pretty much right after he would start," O'Brien said. "The phone calls were nothing rant at Northwest Plaza. She said her daughter would not abandon her baby. Tina Gray had resisted suggestions to put the baby up for adoption, Alice Gray said.

The Sunday after Tina disappeared, Alice Gray said she got three suspicious phone calls almost back-to-back. "They would just listen to my voice," she said. "They would never say anything. "They would hold on as long as I would hang on. I was wondering if that was her maybe listening to see if she could hear the baby," Gray said.

She said another call or two like that occurred Sunday. Two psychics told her they see her daughter trying to call but not being able to. "That gave me some hope again," Gray said. O'Brien said police are baffled. "We've contacted every known friend, associate, employer and co-workers.

We've done aerial searches of her house and her friends' houses, and her known hangouts," he said. "We've been devoting almost all of our time to this as of late. We're checking out any lead that comes in. We've been up to her school and had a memo read in all the classes." lewd or threatening. They were odd or suspicious mainly because she received them at a public phone while waiting at the bus stop." The note "apparently was meant for her to find but was intercepted by someone who read it and saw the picture and letter, and turned it over to police," O'Brien When she disappeared, Gray was driving her mother's light-brown, four-door 1987 Nissan Stanza, with Missouri license plate HSG 961.

The car has yet to be found. On the day after Thanksgiving, Gray left her daughter. Jasmine, with a friend, 23, and said she would be returning in an hour. Gray told her friend, who had babysat for her before, that she was going to get shoes and clothes for the baby. She got into her mother's car and left about 10:30 a.m.

The friend told police that Gray ordinarily called him once every hour to check on Jasmine, O'Brien said. This time, there was no word. Her mother, Alice Gray, reported her missing later that evening when she did not return home. Alice Gray said her daughter was happy and looked forward to starting a new job at the Merry-Go-Round in Northwest Plaza on Nov. 26.

She was working at a McDonald's restau I i- tf- Sam Leone Post-Dispatch In Memory Dr. William Melvin Price (right) unveiling a plaque of his father, the late U.S. Rep. Melvin C. Price, at a ceremony Wednesday dedicating the new Defense Commercial Communications building at Scott Air Force Base.

Helping Price is Dennis W. Groh, director of acquisition management at Scott. In Sikeston? Not This Flash BACK IN 1951, when first-year student Kenneth Dement caught the attention of football fans at Southeast Missouri State University as a hotshot starter, the campus paper called him the "freshman flash from Sikeston." This week, he lost out on a chance to reclaim at least part of the appellation he won back in Cape Girardeau. I learned of the tragic loss Wednesday, when I opened what is probably the most unusual letter I have ever received. The first paragraph (and there were only two) got right to the point "It was nice to visit with you on the phone today," Dement wrote.

"I assure you, I did keep my clothes on." This is not what it seems. Dement, who now uses a Sr. after his last name, is an allegedly respectable citizen. He still lives in Sikeston. He makes his living as a lawyer.

We had been chatting earlier that day about another letter he wrote and mailed off to this venerable news organization. It contained a promise to do something rash and since we, also, are an allegedly respectable (corporate) citizen, we naturally felt obliged to handle this with some delicacy. 1 Until, that is, it ended up on my desk. "Dear Sir or Madame," he wrote. "People are really in a panic over the supposedly upcoming earthquake.

I say unprintable! If the earthquake does take place like they are saying I'll take of all my clothes in the middle of South Kingshighway in Sikeston, Missouri. "Very truly yours, "Kenneth L. Dement Sr." As I said, Dement is an allegedly respectable citizen. So it was a little surprising to see him sticking his neck out (and potentially sticking it out without a collar) in such a brash manner. But Monday, as evening neared and the earth was still still, Dement was still thumbing his nose at fate.

When asked if he wasn't just a teeny bit nervous about Iben Browning's projection, he snorted. "No!" he barked into the telephone. "It's unprintable! It's just unprintable that's all it is!" He acknowledged that the cold that had descended even in Sikeston and the snow that was predicted for later that night would make for a pretty miserable stint in the middle of the road. He allowed as how he was not in the habit of publicly promising to disrobe but said he wasn't going to be shy about it, if he had to. "I'm good looking real good looking," he said.

He's also a little mysterious. He said he's "57 or 58" but would not specify. He also claims to be "real tall" and in good shape. This is important to him, and it has to do with that "freshman flash" stuff. He went on from early stardom to later stardom, distinguishing himself for the last of his college career.

"I got three teeth knocked out," he boasts. Two of them went in the middle of a college game. Which brings him to another distinction: He was drafted by the New York Giants his senior year but passed on the bid to join the Marines. That's where he lost the third. In a move his dentist probably curses to this day, Dement decided to go to law school after the Marines.

Washington University's law school sent him out into the world in 1961, to make a living at less physically demanding labor. And, oh, he said. Had he mentioned that they had retired his number? With his letter assuring me that he had remained fully clothed, Dement sent a packet of clips and a resume. Sure enough, there were three articles about SEMO retiring No. 40, his number, last year in tribute.

It was the same year he was the subject of a Big BrothersBig Sisters roast. "They said i was good lookin'," Dement allowed with a sly laugh. "I can take it because I know a lot. I can get 'em back." He can get 'em in court, he's proved that. He still holds the record for civil suit awards in Scott County, where he won a $1 million-plus settlement against Firestone Tire for the widow and son of a man killed when one of the company's tires blew up while the man was inflating it He's got another suit pending against the company, for a man who was seriously injured in a similar incident.

The tire case also gave him a taste of publicity, when Mike Wallace came to town to interview him for "60 Minutes." Dement was not impressed. "I didn't like him. We said, 'You come He said, 'No, no, we're going somewhere Dement said. Eventually, Dement won out and got the crew to come to town. But Dement got his revenge.

Wallace was not on the guest list for Dement's latest expose the one that didn't come off. It's probably better that way. Now, he can be remembered as the Freshman Flash, rather than the Fault Flasher. Buechner Petition Seeks Recount Raises Issue Of New Election If Major Balloting Irregularities Found Contina "Tina" Gray Sums Fudged, Says Foe Of Lambert Plan By Margaret Gillerman Of the Post-Dispatch Stall An opponent of a plan to expand Lambert Field into Bridgeton is charging that airport planners erred in comparing the costs of expanding Lambert Field and building a new alternate airport. In documents submitted to the Federal Aviation Administration this week, Richard Cochran a computer programmer for McDonnell Douglas Corp.

who lives in the Bridge-ton area charges that airport planners inflated the cost of a new airport to $2.6 billion and underestimated the cost of a Lambert expansion at 1 .2 billion. St. Louis has submitted its plan for expanding Lambert to the aviation agency for its review and approval. The agency requires that proposals for expansion of airports include an evaluation of building a new airport at alternate sites. A spokesman' for Landrum Brown, the firm hired by the city to draft the expansion proposal, defended its estimates.

The firm constructed a model of a "generic" new airport that could be built at any site. As part of their study, the planners looked at studies of 12 specific alternate airport sites in the region and rejected each. Mark Conway, who headed the Landrum Brown team, defended its figures as "a very fair comparison that reflects the reality of the situation." In his letter, Cochran says Landrum Brown unfairly compared Lambert's expansion costs to the cost of a new airport four times the size of Lambert. Landrum Brown also figured costs at a new airport that would have longer runways and greater runway separations than Lambert, he said. Other costs used for the generic new airport but not for an expanded Lambert include: $65 million for a bridge to handle traffic.

$356 million in debt service for Lambert. $10 million in landscaping. Cochran said: "If they're going to include a cost item in one, they should include it in the other." In reply, Conway said that if Cochran believed that a new airport would include only what Lambert had, "that doesn't make a lot of sense." "You wouldn't pick up and move an airport, unless you expect to gain something," Conway said. Among the discrepancies cited by Cochran: Easements. The Landrum Brown study estimates such costs at $20 million for a new airport but includes no such costs for an expanded Lambert.

In reply, Conway said it would be foolish to build a new airport without buying land around it. A $65 million bridge, which was included in the new airport but not in the cost for an expanded Lambert. Conway said: "I'd have to believe some sort of infrastructure development would be needed" to transport people to a new outlying airport. "If you don't include it, you're kidding yourself; you'll have to pay for it." An underground people mover, which was included in the new airport estimates but not the plan for an expanded Lambert. Conway said moving sidewalks would be better at Lambert.

Officials Urge Public To Speak Out At Hearing On Radioactive Waste Two elected officials have urged the public to attend a public hearing today on radioactive waste. St. Louis Alderman Mary Ross, D-5th Ward, and St. Louis County Councilman John Shear, D-lst District, urged the citizen participation at a press conference Wednesday morning downtown. The Department of Energy will hold the hearing from 9 a.m.

to 9:30 p.m. today at the Holiday Inn-Clayton Plaza, 7730 Bonhomme Avenue. The hearing is one of several being held by the department around the country. Shear and Ross said that St. Louisans had shown that they do not want radioactive waste stored in the metropolitan area.

They cited the Nov. 6 nonbinding referendum in which more than 80 percent of city and county voters opposed the establishment of a permanent waste storing bunker at Lambert Field. Said Ross: "It is imperative that we let DOE know that we're not interested in having a radioactive bunker at the airport or anywhere near where people are living." that location may be "unacceptable" because of mismanagement. Some other hand counts or reviews sought by Buechner concern: Ballots in the 84th Missouri House district in which several write-in campaigns for the seat of Rep. Dewey Crump, D-Maryland Heights, took place.

Jerry B. Wamser, Buechner's attorney, said votes for all offices there were hand-counted and could have been subject to error not just in the race for Crump's seat. Ballots previously double-checked by local election authorities, such as damaged ballots. Absentee ballots previously rejected for failing to meet statutory standards. Buechner also asked that the court review "numerous voter reports" of 2nd District ballot books being placed inadvertently in polling places in the 3rd District.

St. Louis County Election Board officials already have rejected those accusations. And he asked that the court review military absentee ballots received after the deadline of 7 p.m. Election Day to decide whether "the military emergency and movement of large numbers of troops to isolated locations in The Democratic State Committee cried foul before the election Nov. 6 after Hohulin promised to use some of his paycheck, if elected, to give $350 scholarships to a student in each school in his district, in southwestern Missouri.

Hohulin then went on to defeat incumbent state Rep. Jerry Burch, D-Walker. A judge in Vernon County appointed Attorney General William Webster as a special prosecutor to look into the matter, Webster's office is investigating. In her successful campaign against Rep. Jack Buechner, R-Kirkwood, Horn promised to give her share of a congressional pay raise to unspecified "social service organizations in the 2nd District." Buechner complained in a radio commercial that Horn's statement violated Missouri law.

In response, Horn said the Missouri law was invalid because the U.S. Supreme Court in 1982 declared unconstitutional a Kentucky ruling barring similar promises by candidates. She also said her promise was legal because ynirilfflTftBiwm By Mark Schlinkmann Regional Political Correspondent Rep. Jack Buechner, R-Kirkwood, filed suit Wednesday in St. Louis County Circuit Court to formally request a recount of his 48-vote loss to Democrat Joan Kelly Horn in the election Nov 6.

Buechner asked the court to consider ordering a new election if it found "irregularities of sufficient magnitude to cast doubt on the validity" of the 2nd District vote. Under Missouri law, Buechner is entitled to such a recount because the votes for him and Horn in the official certified results came within 1 percent of each other. In his suit, Buechner asked for a machine count of most of the results but sought a hand count in several areas. Among those are the St. Charles precincts cited by Buechner previously in which "an indeterminate number of voters were presented with the wrong congressional district ballot book at improperly placed" voting stations.

St. Charles County Clerk Jim Primm and Horn's attorney have said no more than 15 or 16 votes in the Buechner-Horn tally are at stake because of the foul-up. Buechner's side has contended that as many as 114 ballots at Saudi Arabia" merits an extension. Buechner added that he would review whether any votes were cast by people Buechner barred by law from doing so such as those who moved but voted from the former address. In Washington, Horn said she did not think the recount could be completed by the end of the year as Buechner expects, because many election board workers take vacation during the Christmas holidays.

"I have every intention of being sworn in on Jan. 3," Horn said. "And I'm confident that my victory will stand" in the recount. Horn, of Ladue, contended that Buechner filed his request for a recount too early and is required to wait until Secretary of State Roy Blunt certifies the official results on Friday. Wamser, Buechner's lawyer, maintained that state law allows the filing to take place after local authorities issue their certification.

Horn said Buechner "seems to want to speed up the whole process. But I don't really see how he can now." she did not promise to give her pay raise to any specific organization. Paul Bloch, an aide to Secretary of State Roy Blunt, said Horn Wednesday that the office's legal counsel had reviewed the Supreme Court case. Buechner's office in Washington said Buechner had no comment on the development "other than to wonder if Gene Bushmann will be consistent with his criticism." D.J. Caulfield, Buechner's spokesman, said Buechner disputed Horn's view that the Missouri law was Invalid.

But he said he did not plan to seek any legal action on the point. Mary Jenkins, an aide to Webster, said Webster had no plans to check into Horn's statements at the same time Hohulin's promises are investigated. She said Webster was involved only because he was named as a special prosecutor in the case in Vernon County. 1 State Democrats Throw Stones Horn Campaign Pledge Is Similar To One That Prompted Complaint By Mark Schlinkmann Regional Political Correspondent Democratic Party officials have spurred a state inquiry into a newly elected Republican's campaign promise to donate part of his pay to charity without realizing that Democratic Joan Kelly Horn of Ladue also made such a pledge. At issue is a state law barring candidates from "promising to pay back or donate to any public or private interest any portion" of the salary for the office sought "as an inducement to voters." After being told this week by a reporter of Horn's promise, Democratic State Chairman Eugene Bushmann said, "It's kind of embarrassing.

"You rant and rave about something, and then someone says, 'What about your Bushmann said that, before commenting further, he wanted to compare the promises by state Martin "Bubs" Hohulin, R-Lamar, and Horn I.